“Well, he goes, or I go,” said Mr. Brown. “One or other of us must be destroyed. The world can’t hold us both. You can take your choice.”
Thus Bunker’s fate was sealed.
Ethel, who had hardly looked at Bunker for months without disgust, began, now that his dissolution was imminent, to dwell upon his engaging kittenhood, to see him in her mind’s eye as a black ball with a blue ribbon around his neck, and to experience all the feelings that one ought to experience when one’s beloved pet is torn from one by Death. She would even have fondled him if he hadn’t been so mangy. When his hideous voice upraised itself she would murmur, “My darling Bunker.” And only a week ago she had murmured, “Why we keep that cat, I can’t think.”
One afternoon when Ethel was at the tennis club, Mrs. Brown approached William mysteriously.
“William, dear, I think it would be so kind of you to take Bunker to Gorton’s now while Ethel is out. I’ve told Mr. Gorton and he’s expecting him, and it would be much nicer for Ethel just to hear that it was all over.”
Nothing loth to help in Bunker’s destruction, William took the covered basket from the pantry and went into the garden, caught a glimpse of black fur beyond the summer-house, crept up behind it, grabbed it with a triumphant “Would you?” and clapped it into the basket.
*****
Gorton’s was a wonderland to William—dogs in cages, cats in cages, guinea-pigs in cages, rabbits in cages, white rats in cages, tortoises in cages, gold-fish in bowls.
Once William had been thrilled to see a monkey there. William had stood outside the shop for a whole morning watching it and making encouraging conciliatory noises to it which it answered by an occasional jabber that delighted William’s very soul. William was glad of an errand that gave him an excuse for wandering round the fascinations of the shop. He handed his basket to Mr. Gorton, and began his tour of inspection. He spent half an hour in front of the cage of a parrot, who screamed repeatedly, “Go—away, you ass, go away!”
William would never have tired of the joy of listening to this, but, discovering that it was almost tea-time, he reluctantly took up his empty basket and returned.